Former Hartford refinery owner ordered to pay $10M

The former Apex Oil Co. refinery in Hartford, now operated as a Valero Refinery, is framed through a child’s tire swing Wednesday on Maple Street in Hartford after Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan announced that Apex will pay a $10 million settlement for their part in the contamination of the water table in the small community. For years, residents on the east side of town have complained of fumes and fires in their basements due to a large plume of gasoline floating on the water table under part of the town. Apex owned the refinery from 1967 to 1988 and the money will be used to help fund an environmental cleanup.

John Badman|The Telegraph

The current Valero refinery, formerly owned by Apex Oil Co., has rusty pipes as seen from Hawthorne Street in Hartford Wednesday where weeds are growing out of a broken and rusted pipe. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has been, and will continue, overseeing remediation of the contamination.

John Badman|The Telegraph

A truck passes down Hawthorne Street in Hartford Wednesday past the Valero Refinery, which was formerly owned by the Apex Oil Co. from 1967 to 1988. Apex agreed to a $10 million settlement Wednesday from a suit brought by Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan. The money will be placed in a trust to help cleanup the large plume of gasoline floating on the water table under the east side of Hartford.

John Badman|The Telegraph

A monitoring well to test the ground and water table for gasoline contamination sits in the middle of Maple Street in Hartford Wednesday. More than a hundred such wells have been placed on the east side of town as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency continues to oversee the cleanup of ground and water table pollution from gasoline leaked from the nearby refinery under two different owners.

John Badman|The Telegraph

Premcor, current owner of the Hartford refinery, was founded as a gasoline refinery by Emory T. Clark, who initially ran a gas station in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Clark Oil and Refinery grew, and it began refining oil in 1943. In 1981, Apex Oil Co. purchased Clark Oil. Apex operated the Hartford refinery from 1967 to 1988, until Clark took over again. Clark sold its brand name in 2000 and it became known as Premcor.

In 2008, a judge approved a settlement of $16 million among several Hartford residents and the refining companies Premcor and Equilon. Also in 2008, the village of Hartford filed suit against Premcor and other area refineries, claiming they caused damage and installed recovery systems that didn’t work.

HARTFORD — The former owner of an oil refinery has been ordered to pay $10 million toward environmental cleanup efforts, the Illinois Attorney General announced Wednesday.

Residents of the small village along the Mississippi River have faced health hazards, safety risks and property loss because of contamination over decades.

Pipeline leaks, for one, created an underground plume of gasoline and other petroleum byproducts under the northeast side of town. The toxic mixture sits on top of groundwater, and during high waters, vapors can be released, setting basements and homes on fire. Lawyers in a 2008 lawsuit said the plume and poor air quality have caused health problems in residents.

Apex Oil Company owned and operated the oil refinery near Hartford from 1967 until 1988, when the current owner, Connecticut-based Premcor Refining Group, purchased the property and took over operations.

Now, Attorney General Lisa Madigan and Apex have agreed on a $10 million settlement. On Sept. 7, Apex was ordered to deposit $10 million within 10 days into a trust fund established to pay for cleanup and remediation. The Illinois Environmental Protection Agency will administer the funds.

James Sanders, corporate counsel for Apex, said the company is “gratified by the court’s approval of our settlement with the state.” He declined to offer further comment.

The settlement — which ends Apex’s liability for the property altogether — comes after 13 years of litigation between the state, Apex and Premcor. The lawsuit against the two companies alleged gasoline and oil product leaks under both owners contaminated land and groundwater.

Premcor, however, opposed the consent order. Premcor claims Apex is not paying its fair share in the remediation, according to the order. The company says it has paid $51 million so far in cleanup, and the total cost come close to $200 million. The state’s lawsuit against Premcor is ongoing.

The refinery’s past is riddled with lawsuits from both Hartford residents and the village itself. In 2008, the village sued several oil refiners, including Premcor. The suit claimed contamination caused property values to go down, municipal services costs to go up and increased payroll related to overtime hours.

One Hartford resident, Marjorie Schmidt, 77, said she has seen ill effects from the refinery in the half-century she has lived in the village. Things used to be a lot worse, though, she said.

“It was much worse when I first lived here,” Schmidt said. “But it’s still bad. The air quality here is very bad. It’s worse in the summer. One day when there was high humidity and it was cloudy, I swear there was almost a funnel cloud from the refinery on over to the levee.”

Schmidt, who worked as a nurse in Alton for more than 40 years, said about a year ago she had to sell her first Hartford home in a short sale, meaning she sold it for less than was owed on the mortgage. She now lives in a small house on East Date Street on the northeast side of town. There are six empty homes on her block out of about a dozen. Some of the empty homes are owned by the refinery.

The attorney general said the settlement is an “important step” in making sure contaminated water and land in the area around where Schmidt lives is cleaned up.

“My office will continue our work to hold the current refinery owner accountable for its role in causing the environmental damage to the site and impacting the nearby Hartford community,” Madigan said.

While Schmidt says the settlement with Apex is “a great thing,” she thinks it comes a little too late.

“That’s not going to help the people that have died, that have gotten sick. Money can’t buy health,” Schmidt said.

Apex Oil Company is based in Clayton, Missouri and provides wholesale distribution, storage and transportation of petroleum products, according to the company’s website. The company operates product locations in more than 20 areas in the United States, including locations in Granite City, St. Louis and Chicago.

Premcor is an oil refinery company based in Delaware. It was acquired by Texas-based oil company Valero in 2005.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency continues to oversee remediation of the contamination in the nearby community while the lawsuit is pending.

The former Apex Oil Co. refinery in Hartford, now operated as a Valero Refinery, is framed through a child’s tire swing Wednesday on Maple Street in Hartford after Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan announced that Apex will pay a $10 million settlement for their part in the contamination of the water table in the small community. For years, residents on the east side of town have complained of fumes and fires in their basements due to a large plume of gasoline floating on the water table under part of the town. Apex owned the refinery from 1967 to 1988 and the money will be used to help fund an environmental cleanup.

http://thetelegraph.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/web1_RefineryFine1LEAD.jpgThe former Apex Oil Co. refinery in Hartford, now operated as a Valero Refinery, is framed through a child’s tire swing Wednesday on Maple Street in Hartford after Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan announced that Apex will pay a $10 million settlement for their part in the contamination of the water table in the small community. For years, residents on the east side of town have complained of fumes and fires in their basements due to a large plume of gasoline floating on the water table under part of the town. Apex owned the refinery from 1967 to 1988 and the money will be used to help fund an environmental cleanup. John Badman|The Telegraph

The current Valero refinery, formerly owned by Apex Oil Co., has rusty pipes as seen from Hawthorne Street in Hartford Wednesday where weeds are growing out of a broken and rusted pipe. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has been, and will continue, overseeing remediation of the contamination.

http://thetelegraph.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/web1_RefineryFine2SECONDARY-1.jpgThe current Valero refinery, formerly owned by Apex Oil Co., has rusty pipes as seen from Hawthorne Street in Hartford Wednesday where weeds are growing out of a broken and rusted pipe. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has been, and will continue, overseeing remediation of the contamination. John Badman|The Telegraph

A truck passes down Hawthorne Street in Hartford Wednesday past the Valero Refinery, which was formerly owned by the Apex Oil Co. from 1967 to 1988. Apex agreed to a $10 million settlement Wednesday from a suit brought by Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan. The money will be placed in a trust to help cleanup the large plume of gasoline floating on the water table under the east side of Hartford.

http://thetelegraph.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/web1_RefineryFine3JUMPorWEB.jpgA truck passes down Hawthorne Street in Hartford Wednesday past the Valero Refinery, which was formerly owned by the Apex Oil Co. from 1967 to 1988. Apex agreed to a $10 million settlement Wednesday from a suit brought by Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan. The money will be placed in a trust to help cleanup the large plume of gasoline floating on the water table under the east side of Hartford. John Badman|The Telegraph

A monitoring well to test the ground and water table for gasoline contamination sits in the middle of Maple Street in Hartford Wednesday. More than a hundred such wells have been placed on the east side of town as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency continues to oversee the cleanup of ground and water table pollution from gasoline leaked from the nearby refinery under two different owners.

http://thetelegraph.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/web1_RefineryFine4JUMPorWEB1.jpgA monitoring well to test the ground and water table for gasoline contamination sits in the middle of Maple Street in Hartford Wednesday. More than a hundred such wells have been placed on the east side of town as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency continues to oversee the cleanup of ground and water table pollution from gasoline leaked from the nearby refinery under two different owners. John Badman|The Telegraph

Premcor, current owner of the Hartford refinery, was founded as a gasoline refinery by Emory T. Clark, who initially ran a gas station in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Clark Oil and Refinery grew, and it began refining oil in 1943. In 1981, Apex Oil Co. purchased Clark Oil. Apex operated the Hartford refinery from 1967 to 1988, until Clark took over again. Clark sold its brand name in 2000 and it became known as Premcor.

In 2008, a judge approved a settlement of $16 million among several Hartford residents and the refining companies Premcor and Equilon. Also in 2008, the village of Hartford filed suit against Premcor and other area refineries, claiming they caused damage and installed recovery systems that didn’t work.